Paddock given a bum rap in H-C

LTE Bowden

Posted 5/25/17

Attorney Brian Paddock has been given a bad rap in the Herald-Citizen recently as a spiteful spoiler trying to block the supposed jobs-and-revenue bonanza of the Eagle Pointe shopping development out …

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Paddock given a bum rap in H-C

Posted
Thursday, May 25, 2017 12:00 pm

LTE Bowden

Attorney Brian Paddock has been given a bad rap in the Herald-Citizen recently as a spiteful spoiler trying to block the supposed jobs-and-revenue bonanza of the Eagle Pointe shopping development out of lawyerly mean-spiritedness. Not so. Paddock is deeply knowledgeable of, and committed to, the regulations that are protecting rapidly disappearing, and biologically and hydrologically essential, wetlands in Tennessee. He represents the Sierra Club, which believes that high quality wetlands should not be destroyed or degraded unless all legal procedures/regulations to allow this have been followed.

The Eagle Pointe developers have exploited a questionable de minims legalloophole in those regulations to avoid a full assessment of the effects their proposed development would have on the wetlands included in the property. Paddock is fighting the possibility that what they have done will set a precedent to let other developers ignore, fill, pave over, or build on high-quality wetlands threatened by development.

The other issue is that the Eagle Pointe plans propose to dispose of the significant runoff from upstream properties – the fairgrounds and the new condo/apartment development on Veterans Drive – with a retention pond and simple infiltration into the limestone rock at the site. But the karst formation under the development has not been proven porous enough to accept heavy flows. Flooding on Interstate Drive is possible, especially because the wetlands, as has been pointed out, have already been degraded by surrounding development. The point of the established regulations and forcing developers to abide by them is to avoid that kind of result, as well as to protect wetlands’ health.

Attorney Paddock has no personal financial interest in this matter, and he has the full support of the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club. He was formerly Chapter legal chair for several years.

Regulations in general are in bad odor in the current political climate, and everybody equates “growth” with “progress,” and progress as “good.” But conservatives, in principle, must question the full effects of all change, including commercial development. There are likely to be at least two sides to all stories, and a recent article, editorial, and letters in the Herald Citizen have provided only one.